WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Hiding a House in the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 29: Magic Medicine (2)

──────

“SKELTON, here.”

The moment I entered the low building the sniper’s daughter led me to, I was met with a sight I never expected.

Signs for American franchises, a statue of a colonel who fried chicken well, comic-book superhero movie posters, American road signs, all kinds of English typography, unlit English neon signs, English newspapers, a certain hero’s shield.

The needlessly spacious, poorly organized building was filled with things that were distinctly American, things that reminded me of America.

Upstairs, in a room full of random cover where the wind blew straight through, the sniper was lying prone with her rifle aimed below.

Keeping her eye on the scope, she spoke.

“Enemy. RPG. There.”

The sniper’s daughter set down her binoculars, knelt beside her, and scanned below.

“Can’t see.”

“Hidden.”

The sniper added,

“RPG dangerous. Aiming at us.”

Her Korean was clumsy, but I understood the situation.

The guys drawing attention out front were bait.

Someone carrying a portable rocket launcher was hiding somewhere, planning to blow the sniper and her daughter away in one shot.

That was probably why the sniper had called me.

But that was only her judgment.

I needed to assess the situation by my own standards too.

From what I’d experienced on the battlefield, people backed into a corner tended to make their circumstances seem worse than they really were.

“I’ll take over for a moment. Draw me a simple map.”

I took the sniper rifle from her.

The grip was slick with sweat.

Once I got into position and looked through the high-powered scope, I could see clearly.

Those weren’t ordinary raiders.

They were the ones who had trampled, killed, and somehow survived among countless raiders. The ones who had leveled up.

The guys making a scene in front were laughing and shouting like maniacs, high on drugs. But behind them, beyond cover where the gunfire couldn’t reach, fully armed raiders with cold killers’ eyes were sharply watching every direction.

Those were probably the raiders’ regular members.

The ones acting up front were cannon fodder.

There were quite a few women among them, but they didn’t look like combatants.

“SKELTON.”

The sniper held out her map to me.

I looked at her left foot.

Even with the subzero wind blowing in, it was only wrapped in bandages and held awkwardly raised behind her.

The wound on that left foot was probably why she had risen so unnaturally earlier.

I met her blue eyes.

There wasn’t much of the madness I’d worried about.

There was only depression, anxiety, and the deep shadow of exhaustion.

“What happened to your leg?”

“Need medicine.”

The sniper looked sadly and resentfully at her left foot.

“...My leg rotting.”

“Let’s take a look at it later.”

I examined the map she had drawn.

As expected of someone with military experience, she had neatly marked only the necessary points.

After looking it over for a while, I came to a conclusion.

With these numbers and this equipment, it would be too much.

More than anything, the enemy were cunning hunters.

They knew we were few in number, and they were using their greater numbers to slowly, patiently suffocate us to death.

Showing us the RPG probably didn’t mean they intended to fire it immediately.

They did it because they knew simply showing it would shake us.

Their real goal was likely to make us panic, imagine all kinds of things, and collapse faster.

I looked at the sniper.

“This’ll be a hard fight.”

“So?”

“There’s room in my bunker.”

The sniper’s eyes shook violently, but she was a soldier too.

She understood her situation better than anyone.

She looked sadly at her leg.

“Sue.”

The sniper called her daughter.

Sue.

That was her daughter’s name.

Even in such extreme circumstances, the mother and daughter seemed close.

They had reached the point where they understood each other without needing to say much.

Sue understood what her mother meant, shook her head, and hugged her.

She whispered something in English.

She was probably saying she didn’t want to leave.

Still holding her daughter, the sniper looked at me with wet eyes.

“Sorry, SKELTON. I knew dangerous. I knew, but called you.”

I calmly asked her, now that she was finally speaking her mind.

“Do you have other weapons?”

“Other weapons?”

“Before, I saw a bunch of heavy weapons in the Humvee. Where’d they all go?”

The sniper gently pulled her daughter away and met her eyes.

“Sue.”

Sue nodded, adjusted her helmet, and swiftly ran ahead.

“SKELTON. Follow.”

As I left, I looked back at the sniper.

With a lonely expression, she gestured to me.

She meant for me to take her daughter.

I shook my head.

Surprise flickered through her eyes.

Leaving that surprise behind, I followed Sue.

The weapons were stored in a second-floor warehouse.

I had been right about what I saw.

Recoilless rifles, 7.62 mm machine guns, Claymore mines, grenades, even Javelins.

There were enough heavy weapons piled up to call it a department store for guns.

But there was a reason the sniper wasn’t using them.

She had two Javelins, supposedly her strongest weapons, but both batteries were dead. The other weapons had powerful firepower, but their range or accuracy was a problem.

On top of that, now that she could barely walk, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they were weapons she could no longer use.

But that had nothing to do with me.

I found a useful weapon.

An American-made recoilless rifle.

I had fired one before, when I was in Paju.

It was light, reliable, and had excellent firepower.

Its effective range was around 200 meters.

Not a bad means of conversation.

“Let me borrow two.”

“Two?”

I nodded at the sniper’s question, then asked her,

“What’s your name?”

The sniper hesitated for a moment, then looked at me with steady eyes and answered.

“Rebecca.”

Now I had powerful weapons in my hands.

I had taken two, but there would probably only be one chance for an effective strike.

The conclusion was simple.

I had to kill as many as possible in one go.

Especially the fully armed veterans positioned deepest inside.

The drugged-up cannon fodder could come after that, but there were too many of them to ignore.

So the method I chose was surprisingly similar to that of my sniper neighbor.

Hide quietly in ambush, wait for the right time, and aim for a single chance.

But those raiders weren’t easy opponents.

Unlike the Pioneers I had faced at the theme park, they had spread out loosely and posted guards in every direction.

I waited.

The raiders wore down the sniper’s nerves by sending out drugged, drunken cannon fodder.

Whenever that happened, the sniper and her daughter fired at them, but gained little.

I hid in the bushes, taking in the chill rising from the ground as I waited for nightfall.

“You fucking bastard! Do it right! I told you to keep your eyes open!”

A harsh voice rang out from the enemy camp.

It came from someone who seemed to be a leader. They mercilessly beat a cannon-fodder raider with a club, making an example for everyone else.

The raider, barely alive, was carried away and thrown onto the ground. No one cared for them.

Even at night, there was no sign that their vigilance would waver.

Instead, they periodically sent a few riflemen to fire at the building where the sniper was hiding.

They had no intention of letting us rest properly, day or night.

With no other choice, I pulled back, switched places with the sniper, and let her get some sleep.

The provocations continued the next day.

They grew bolder, using a vehicle fitted with armored plating to close the distance before playing music through speakers.

When the music briefly stopped, the one who seemed to be the leader hid far behind cover and shouted through a microphone.

“You hiding in there. I know exactly how many of you there are. Two at most, right? Or three? I heard you calling for help over the radio. But what’s that gonna change? I hate dragging things out too, so let’s make a simple deal. You got lots of bullets, right? Hand some over. I’m not asking for much. Just five hundred rounds. You’ve got that much, don’t you? People around here have been talking.”

As dusk fell, I approached them again.

The man they had thrown outside the day before was frozen stiff, his eyes wide open.

Their guard was still tight.

I might have been able to force my way through a gap, but I decided to wait for another chance.

Another day passed pointlessly.

The sniper looked worried as she spoke to me.

“Are you okay? Can’t see a way?”

“Mm.”

I handed her some chocolate and answered,

“Just wait.”

While she kept watch, I got a little sleep.

I heard several gunshots through my drowsiness, but I didn’t bother waking up.

Another day passed.

It was getting to the point where I should have been worried about my own bunker, but I tried not to waver.

In this fight, the first one to waver would lose.

Between the one trying to starve the other out and the one being starved out, the first to stumble would die.

The opportunity came without warning.

Late that evening, rain suddenly poured down.

It was the season and temperature for snow, yet rain was falling for some reason.

The raiders put up tents and gathered beneath them.

I understood what they were thinking.

They didn’t want to get soaked in this freezing weather.

But in a fight, the ones least prepared were always the first to die.

Pitter-patter.

Near-freezing rainwater ran down my forehead.

My clothes were already soaked with mud, cold, and rainwater. The frigid air blowing in from the river evaporated the water in my clothes, bringing a cold harsh enough to freeze my lungs.

I accepted all of that and crawled forward.

I could see them through my breath.

The bastards laughing inside the tent.

I aimed the front sight, disengaged the safety, and pointed the recoilless rifle at them.

The one who seemed to be the leader looked in my direction, but the rocket had already launched with a roar and was rushing toward them.

Kaboom!

An explosion ending.

I hate them, but they’re the easiest.

This was the second time I had brought people into my bunker.

I brought sniper Rebecca and her daughter Sue to my bunker.

The purpose was to operate on Rebecca.

Her left foot was becoming necrotic.

A soft-tissue infection, once called cellulitis, was eating away at her leg and mind.

She had probably kept asking for medicine because she intended to perform the operation herself.

“Wait a moment. Let me watch some videos.”

I was a quack too, but I had learned basic trauma treatment in school and on the battlefield.

I had video tutorials as well, so it would work out somehow.

“SKELTON!”

Sue seemed fascinated by my bunker.

Well, anyone would be amazed seeing such a big, beautiful bunker.

“Why is the toilet in the middle?”

“...Stay beside your mom.”

I began the operation.

I squeezed out the pus, cut open the wound, disinfected it, and applied ointment.

This was the best I could do.

The rest depended on the effectiveness of the antibiotics Kyle_Dos had left behind and Rebecca’s will to live.

Pale-faced, Rebecca looked at me and asked,

“Did you do it right? Not wrong, right?”

“I watched a video, so it should be fine. Take your medicine properly. Unless you want your leg cut off.”

She looked at her bloodied, bandaged left foot, brushed back her hair, and stared at the ceiling.

“Do you have drugs?”

“You still need them?”

“It’s hard.”

With a sigh, she spoke sadly.

Of course it was hard.

I understood that feeling.

But drugs were out of the question.

I had decided that from the beginning.

“Drugs won’t solve the problem.”

Rebecca nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

“...I miss home.”

Home.

How long had it been since I heard that word?

“...And people. People who understand our language. I want to talk. In our language, not this one.”

Her words were clumsy, but they reached deeper into my heart than any fancy phrase could have.

I had experienced something similar in a dream.

How vague and unfamiliar it was to deal with someone who spoke a language different from mine.

For her, that vague uncertainty must have been everyday life.

“Our language...”

Maybe that accumulated uncertainty had sickened her heart more deeply than the disease in her body.

If so, there was no solution.

How could I possibly send her back to America in this situation?

I was about to give up and comfort her with empty words.

“!”

No, wait.

There was.

Magic that could grant her wish.

“Hey, Rebecca.”

I called her.

“Come on.”

I opened my laptop and entered the community.

<Viva! Apocalypse!>

“What? What is this?”

Sue came closer too, interested.

It was time to work some magic.

Magic I never thought had anything to do with me.

This magic required no grand incantation or magic circle. It could be cast with a few clicks.

The magic began.

Along with a lagging scroll.

anonymous45 : Is it actually hard to look of protein

-rich plants in the wild to eat if one is starving?

In_domini_LK : it depends on season and place.

PennKIX1978 : Wild Amaranth is pretty high in proteins.

anonymous71 : meet my WAIFUs.......

Awkward English post titles.

That’s right.

This was the Viva! Apocalypse! English board.

In fact, this was the main board, and it had several times more users than ours.

There was a translation function, but I could count the times I had used it on one hand.

The Korean board was home to me.

But for this predator from a world entirely different from mine, the growls of fellow predators would suit her better.

“What is this? Don’t tell me... living people?”

Of course.

It was the echo of the same homeland.

“Obviously.”

I stepped aside as Rebecca’s face brightened like a young girl’s.

With trembling hands, the sniper touched the keyboard. Then she sent the language she had held in her heart out into the world.

SKELTON : Hi guys :)

“Get out.”

I admit it.

This Park Gyu isn’t a gentleman.

“I said get out.”

“Just a little longer.”

“No, you were on it all night. How long are you going to keep going?”

“Just a little longer.”

The sniper was trouble, but her daughter was no joke either.

“SKELTON, what’s this?”

“Hey, hey, hey! Put that back. It’s not for kids to see.”

She had an uncanny talent for finding embarrassing things.

She reminded me of the ferret my older sister used to keep.

It was nearly noon by the time I drove the disastrous mother and daughter out.

“...Thank you, SKELTON.”

“Thank you, SKELTON!”

Only then did they thank me.

The sniper whispered something to her daughter.

Sue nodded and asked me in fairly fluent Korean,

“Mom asks why you helped us then.”

“Then?”

“You changed your mind when you first told us to run away, didn’t you?”

“That’s...”

I smiled.

It wasn’t something I needed to tell them.

That Rebecca holding Sue and looking at me with wet eyes looked uncannily like my dying mother holding my older sister.

“Because you’re neighbors.”

It was half the truth.

I had bluntly turned them away from my main bunker, but I also offered them one of my dummy bunkers.

Either way, the mother and daughter seemed to be reaching their limit.

Rebecca still seemed reluctant to leave her territory.

I didn’t try to stop her.

After sharing living space with someone other than myself for barely half a day, I knew all too well that it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

We needed more preparation.

Both the mother and daughter, and me.

“Just one more hour on the computer.”

“Get out.”

I watched the mother and daughter climb the stairs of the abandoned building from beside my truck.

Rebecca limped along, then looked back and gave me a small bow.

I suddenly asked her,

“Do you still need drugs?”

Rebecca smiled bitterly and shook her head.

Sue clung to her mother and waved at me.

I stood there for a while, watching them.

Magic medicine really did exist.

Hoping there was magic medicine for me too, I left.

“...”

At Christmas, I should just stick to talking over the radio.

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